How to collect Avios with Shell Drivers Club – and get triple Avios this Summer

Shell Drivers Club is the loyalty scheme for Shell garages in the UK.  Joining is simple – pick up a card at a Shell station when filling up and register it online.

You earn 100 Avios just for registering your card so it is worth doing this even if you switch to a different reward later.

Full details can be found at the Shell Drivers Club website here.

The scheme is simple – you earn 1 Shell point for every litre of petrol you buy, and 2 points = 1 Avios. As well as Avios, 500 points can be turned into £2.50 of Shell vouchers or £2.50 of Waitrose vouchers. The benefit of taking Avios is that Shell converts (once a quarter) your points in multiples of 20 (ie 10 Avios) with no minimum, unlike the 500 point minimum for other rewards.

A special deal for Summer

Effective immediately and running until 7th July, you can collect triple Avios on Shell V-Power Unleaded or Shell V-Power Diesel performance fuel.

In order to get the bonus, Avios Travel Rewards Programme or British Airways Executive Club must have been selected as your Shell Drivers Club reward prior to each purchase.   If you need to update your reward information, log in to www.shellsmart.com and select the reward of your choice in the personal details section.

Is Shell a worthwhile way of collecting Avios?

If we ignore the Summer promotion, I would say ‘not necessarily’.  There are two reasons for this.

The first reasons it that, if you buy enough Shell fuel to get to 500 points on a regular basis, you will effectively be ‘paying’ 1p per Avios (since 500 points is worth 250 Avios or £2.50 in Shell or Waitrose vouchers). That is a bad deal as far as I am concerned although I know some people are happy to pay 1p per point.

Secondly, I would not switch from a cheaper garage to Shell purely for the Avios unless my employer was paying the bill.  Assuming £1 per litre, you are spending £500 on petrol to get just £2.50 or 250 Avios back!  That is a return of just 0.5%.

With this Summer promotion, however, Avios looks like a better deal.  It is worth switching away from taking Shell or Waitrose vouchers and into Avios if you can earn triple Avios on your fuel spending until 7th July.

Even if your employer is paying, Tesco offers a better reward structure as I explained in this article on earning Avios when buying petrol.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.